


In Which My Faulty Logic Gets Smacked Down (and I turn to dream analysis)

by CaptainMercy42



Series: TV and the female [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:43:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainMercy42/pseuds/CaptainMercy42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not a fic!</p>
<p>This is an explanation of my naivety when I acted as if the m/m shipping of Supernatural and Sherlock characters was soooo culturally significant when it's not really the ship that is a surprise, but more the analytic dissection of female written m/m fics that gets me jazzed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which My Faulty Logic Gets Smacked Down (and I turn to dream analysis)

Hello!  You may know me as the person who started that one conversation about why women love m/m so much, in the context of Supernatural.  I posted on tumblr, reposted on AO3 and then linked to a google poll (<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Nq06SYww3bl08ODeYWE0jQMWa-sHPAddcEouRTrIqVc/viewform>) which has brought in over 50 responses!

At first, people who responded were excited to flesh out their own thoughts on why they might like reading m/m fics.  Some of them agreed or disagreed with the hastily-penned options I set forth, but the general consensus was “hey this is an interesting question - thanks for asking!”

More recently I’ve gotten schooled by people who know a lot more about fan fiction than I do - and it’s awesome.  So I’d like to explain myself a little, and share the new theories and ideas that my re-education has produced.

Honestly, and this might be one of the only times someone admits that they’re embarrassed that they haven’t read a lot of fanfiction - but I haven’t read a lot of fanfiction.  It feels like I have, because one day about two years ago I clicked a random link and read an AU fic and my mind short circuited because I didn’t even know things like that existed.  And that was just a f/m pairing that was practically canon.  I still didn’t stumble across a m/m fic until a Johnlock a few months later.  Supernatural followed, and I’ve been hooked.  Possibly addicted.  I haven’t even bothered venturing into other shows (other than Suits - where I read all m/m).  I’m still gobsmacked that AU’s exist, and that there are such large communities of writers sharing very intricate and original stories with each other that all center around various permutations of the same couple of characters.  It feels like I could just read Destiel for the rest of my life and not run out of material.  

So even though it was obvious to me when searching archives like AO3 or fanfiction.net that people were shipping every single character in the history of media, f/m, m/m, f/f and interspecies, my brain was still acting like an AU, m/m fic was a new thing, or some kind of phenomenon.  

It’s not a phenomenon.  I had built Supernatural slash up in my mind to be some epically anomalous response to relationships that the writers were (in my virgin-shipper eyes) writing as platonic, or maybe just bromancy.  But the fact is, the fanfiction community existed long before Supernatural, and the idea of fleshing out the relationships of the most interesting characters and pairing them in every which way and position is a pretty standard response to well-loved (and well-censored) media.  I even went so far as to act as if I’d just come to this conclusion myself (<http://mybadtvhabit.tumblr.com/post/68938321087/anna-from-poland-you-are-brilliant>) by borrowing a line out of one of my responses and then lecturing about how shippers are going to ship the best pairing regardless of the pair’s gender.  So I feel about as effective now as I did when I ran up to my mom at age 5, all excited to show her how I thought I had just invented the concept of braiding.

I concur and admit that my opinions were somewhat uniformed.  It’s not unexpected that women are writing and reading a plethora of m/m fiction from Supernatural or Sherlock.  Many of these women were already participating in both hetero and homo pairings in other fandoms when Supernatural arrived.  It is (I have learned) a given that they would begin experimenting with the characters of Supernatural in the same way, which would result in about 95% m/m fics.

Unfortunately for everyone, none of this information about the equal popularity of m/f fiction is going to stop me from trying to psychoanalyze the shit out of fics that homosexualize the relationships of canonically heterosexual characters.

Firstly, I believe that m/m AU fics, using Supernatural and Johnlock as the examples, are significant in the way they generally write-off the established sexuality of one or both characters in order to justify the sexual nature of the relationship.  Though cases can be made for Sherlock and Castiel as probably gay or utterly indifferent, Sam, Dean, Gabriel and John Watson are all sexually paired with women in canon.  In the context of our heteronormative media, that does not indicate bisexuality.  It indicates that they prefer to have women attend to their sexual needs, even if the other 99% of on-screen time has their emotional needs being attended to by other men.  I think it’s interesting that we are so quick to assign our favorite characters such a fluid sexuality when our own sexuality tends to be one of our defining characteristics.  Just as we suspend our disbelief for the show, we apparently suspend the idea of rigid sexuality when it threatens to eliminate a possible romantic connection between the main characters.  Yes, you can argue that it simply has to be done because fic writers want to ship and write fics and if the show’s all men then that’s all there is to it.  But there IS some dissonance in the way a fic writer can be so staunchly determined to keep everyone “in character” but then swap out that character’s sexuality in the name of romance.

I will freely admit that for me, one of the most interesting moments in the beginning of any AU m/m fic is the moment I discover which path the writer is going to take regarding the sexuality of the characters.  I tend to think of the canon-heterosexuality-factor as a puzzle to be solved, with the writers choosing to attempt it at easy, medium or difficult levels (both characters gay from the beginning, both character’s bi, both characters heterosexual-turned-gay, etc.)  This is obviously not an issue in the hetero f/m pairings of other shows, and it could be one of the reasons I tend to only read m/m fics.  Nothing brings the angst like having a character wrestle with their sexual identity for a few chapters before falling back into the typical love-at-first-sight or boy-next-door trope.

It was also repeatedly stated in the poll response that more women in media would be great, but more women in Supernatural is unnecessary and shouldn’t be forced into the story on principle alone. Perhaps the fact that these male characters’ emotional needs are being filled by other men is part of what prompts us to want their relationships to progress to the final level of intimacy.  When Sam, Dean, or Cas cause and resolve emotional conflicts for each other, it forces the show’s few female characters into roles of opposition or physical gratification (or both).  But if we sew two of the men together in our ship, we essentially free the good female characters from their sex-object status and allow them to participate in seldom-explored positions of platonic friendship or partner in crime.  People might not write or read quite as much f/m or f/f slash featuring Charlie, Jo, Jess or even Ruby and Meg - but these girls usually find their way into very large supporting roles in the m/m stories.  They are often written as one of the male character’s bosom buddies, and their personalities are artfully fleshed out, considering how little we have been able to see of them on-screen.

These are just some trends I’ve noticed in Supernatural m/m AU’s.  Realizing them, and pointing them out makes me feel as if I’m ruminating on the symbolism of a dream.  Like dream analysis, it’s not science.  Also like dream analysis, I feel that a lot of what is revealed in fan fiction is actually in some way symbolic of the writers’ subconscious desires.  Consciously, we’re all reading because they’re going to “get together” or “get it on” or be tragic and we’ll cry until we’re dry.  But the subtle differences and similarities in the ways we go about getting them together, or in bed, or to that deathbed confession of love are unique, yet oftentimes familiar.  

It is mainly from this angle that I personally value reading m/m fics higher than f/m.  I forever feel that through m/m fics I’m discovering important clues about how the women who write, read and comment view themselves, other women, their relationship with men and with society as a whole.  They get to rationalize misogynistic behaviors, or the character’s sudden lack thereof.  They can write an idealized male gaze that often erupts with sexual attraction quite by accident, instead of keeping a running tab of all sexual possibilities within a 20 mi. radius.  They write men fiercely protective of their female friends, and they write females that never need to cash in on that protection.  They write unashamed virgins, porn stars, prostitutes and slaves while they experiment with their ideas or experiences with drug use and alcoholism.  They get to write friendships between gorgeous individuals that turn into love unexpectedly. Unfortunately if you genderswapped one of their characters it could possibly result in the complete breakdown of their story.  Maybe she’d seem too slutty or too prudish or he’d be too rough on her or just a total scumbag for picking up a prostitute in the first place.  

So that’s my story.  My amazement was naivety.  Turns out m/m fics are perhaps no more loved than f/m fics.  Women want to read these fics because they like the characters from the show a lot - so shows with all men have all m/m ships.  Even if my personal OTPs are all m/m, even if it’s a crack!ship - that doesn’t mean that all the other fanfic readers only read m/m fics.  And I think I can get more insight, and fodder for psychoanalysis out of a m/m fic than a f/m fic.  

 

As always, comments welcome.

  
  



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